The
state of our public schools mirrors that of our nation--the lower socioeconomic
areas have inadequate funding for their schools, making them inadequate.
The areas that are more financially secure have adequate
funding--currently collected from property tax--and these schools are
therefore exceptional. For students from lower socioeconomic levels, the
insufficient schools keep their cycle continuous. These students have a right
to be afforded the opportunity to break out and receive an equal education.
This
pathfinder raises questions, discusses difficulties, and offers solutions to
arm educators, parents, and concerned citizens with information to combat
school funding inequalities. Topics to be addressed include: the factors that
create inequalities, the responsibilities of state governments to provide
equality, alternatives to the current situation, and moral and ethical
implications of the inequality.
Educational
Equity (Finance)
Educational Equalization
Education and
State
Educational Opportunities
Disadvantaged Schools
Discrimination in Education
Educational Finance
Funding Formulas
Foundation Programs
Equalization Aid
What Are the Moral
and Ethical Implications of School Funding Inequality?
[CS] This "multiblog" provides posts written about the ways
that educational foundations can inform educational policy and practice. The
blog is written by a group of people who are interested in the state of
education today, and who bring to this interest a set of perspectives and tools
developed in the disciplines known as the "foundations" of education:
philosophy, history, curriculum theory, sociology, economics, and
psychology. It includes posts written on education inequality and the
socioeconomic divide in schools.
[CS] This blog collects articles and posts from various media outlets
on many educational topics including "Achievement Gap" which includes
many writings on the issues of socioeconomic inequalities in American schools.
Lee, Valerie E and Burkam, David T. Inequality at the Starting Gate:
Social Background Differences in Achievement as Children Begin School. Washington, DC: Economic Policy
Institute, 2002.
[CS] This book shows that
inequalities in children's cognitive abilities are substantial from the
beginning, with disadvantaged children starting kindergarten with significantly
lower cognitive skills than their more advantaged counterparts. These same
disadvantaged children are then placed in low-resource schools, magnifying the
initial inequality.
Available
from the Economic Policy Institute.
Johnson, Dale D., Johnson,
Bonnie, Farenga, Stephen J., and Ness, Daniel. Stop
High-Stakes Testing: An Appeal to America's Conscience. New York: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2007.
[CS] This book argues that
closing America's achievement gap cannot be accomplished until equality gaps in
school, home, and neighborhood are addressed and actions are taken to close
them. It discusses the problems with basing school funding on the results of
standardized tests that low-income and minority students are at a disadvantage
when taking.
Available at Amazon.
Kozol, Jonathan. The Shame
of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America. New York: Crown Publishers, 2005.
[CS] This book examines
what Kozol terms "the resegregation of public schools" in America. To
conduct his research, Kozol visited 60 public schools in 11 different states
over a five-year period (2000-2005). He found the worst segregation rates since
Brown v. Board of Education: nationwide, nearly three quarters of black and
Latino students attend schools where their fellow classmates are predominantly
minority students, more than two million black students attend schools that are
99-100% non-white, and in numerous cities Chicago, Washington D.C., and
Detroit, for instance-minorities constitute between 90 and 95% of all public
school students ( 19, 8). Because racially isolated schools tend to appear in
pockets of concentrated poverty, the students this book focuses on also fall
far below federal poverty guidelines.
Available at Amazon.
Edelman,
Marian Wright. Jones, James M. Separate and Unequal: America's Children, Race, and
Poverty. Future of Children. v14 n2 p134-137 Sum 2004.
[CS] In this article Edelman argues that the United
States is the richest nation with the highest number of children living below
the poverty level. These children are being disadvantaged in a myriad of
ways, but it is a stark contrast within the school system, where the economic
inequality is resulting in low-income students ending up in prison with almost
the same certainty as high-income students going to college. This
educational inequity could and should be rectified with immediate action.
Gorski,
Paul. The Myth of the "Culture of Poverty." Educational
Leadership (April 2008) 65.7: 32-36.
[CS] Gorski argues that some of the causes for the
achievement gap between students from high-class and low-class families are
caused by well meaning teachers and administrators who buy into the
"culture of poverty" ideology. He discusses the challenges and
stumbling blocks of children from low-income families and what can be done
within the school system to alleviate these stresses and inequalities.
Gamoran, Adam. What Will Decrease Educational Inequality? Wisconsin Center for
Education Research.
[CS] Article discusses causes and possible solutions
to inequality in schools caused by economic factors. Researcher Adam Gamoran
says that reducing gaps in student achievement in the coming century will
depend on preserving policies that emphasize reducing inequality and on
developing new initiatives.
What Ways Are There to Correct School Funding
(Distribution Inequalities)?
Thomas B. Fordham Institute. Fund the Child: Tackling Inequity and Antiquity in
School Finance. June
2006.
[SD] A
report by a non-profit organization that identifies the problems with the
current inequalities with school funding in detail. The report proposes
to transform the school funding system by using weighted student
funding. The report details how this plan would be
implemented.
Toutkoushian,
Robert K. and Michael, Robert S. What is the Complexity Index? Education Policy Brief (Winter 2007) 5.2.
[SD] This article explains and questions the
current method of funding schools, specifically in Indiana. The authors offer
ways to change the formula used to distribute the funding. Included in
the article, are the policy perspectives of key players in the Indiana
government and education system.
Education
Alternatives for Low Income Students: Vouchers, Charter, Cyber
American Federation of
Teachers. Charter Schools. Weblog
Entry. AFT Hot Topics. May 6, 2008.
[SD] AFT
is a teacher's union. In this blog entry, the writers describe
charter schools and supports them. The entry also lists several
standards that charter school should strive for in order to maximize their
effectiveness and success. The entry is in favor of charter schools that
give teachers an active role.
American Federation of
Teachers. The Many Names of School Vouchers. Weblog Entry.
AFT Hot Topics. March 2001.
[SD] AFT is a teacher's union. In this blog entry, the writers
define the different terms used to discuss school vouchers, including private
school and low income private school vouchers, tuition tax credits and education
savings accounts. Since this is a teacher's union, strong opinions are
expressed regarding these programs.
Teacherken.
A Different Approach to Schools. Weblog
Entry. Education Policy Blog. June 16, 2008.
[SD] This entry discusses the alternatives to the
public school system. The examples provided are effective options
currently offered in Minnesota that give parents more of a choice in where to
send their children to school. There is also a link to the Minnesota website
where greater detail on all the options is provided.
Ellis, Kathleen. Cyber Charter Schools. Educational Horizons (Spring 2008).
[SD] Ellis explains the history of charter schools and the evolution
of cyber schools, or virtual schools, as a descendant of charter
schools. She proposes ways to fund and maintain cyber schools.
Issues concerning cyber schools are explained, such as use by
home-schooled children because they are funded by the government, whereas
homeschooling is not.
Molnar, Alex. Virtually Everywhere: Marketing to Children in
America's Schools. Report of
Commercial Trends in Schools (September 2004).
[SD] The report
includes the explanations of various commercial programs currently being used
in schools in exchange for corporate funding. These practices
include sponsorships, l exclusivity agreements, incentive programs, fundraising
and advertisements. The report discusses the advantages and disadvantages
of the practices.
Krueger, Jon. Controlling Your School's Fundraising Noise. Principal (September/October 2007) 87.1.
[SD] This article
is geared toward the principal's perspective. It discusses the benefits of
fundraising, including the statistical proof. The authors describe
the roles of all involved in the fundraising activities and provides tips on
ensuring successful programs.
What
are the Responsibilities of State Governments to Provide an Equitable Education
to All Students?
Yinger, John. Helping
Children Left Behind.
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2004.
[BB] Based on the Federal mandate that no child should be
left behind, this essay collection looks at first the technical reasons why
inequities exist, followed by various states' education funding reform
measures. One focus of the book is to explore why equalized funding has left
student performance disparities in these areas largely the same as before
reform efforts were undertaken. States profiled include Kansas, Kentucky,
Michigan, Texas, and Vermont.
Available from Amazon.com.
Walker, Elaine M. Educational
Adequacy and the Courts: a Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-CLIO, 2005.
[BB] A comprehensive volume on school funding inequities,
covering the ideological backgrounds, case studies of litigation throughout the
U.S., efforts to establish educational adequacy, legislative reform outcomes
based on these formulas as expressed in a number of states including New
Jersey, the historical background on the role of states in education, and the
impact of all this on schools, including class sizes, etc.
Available through Rutgers University libraries.
West, Martin R. and Paul E. Peterson,
eds. School
Money Trials: The Legal Pursuit of Educational Adequacy. Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution Press, 2007.
[BB] Contains
a collection of essays each by a different author in the field. Topics of
essays include various states' efforts to equalize education, the move toward
determining "adequacy" in education and the difficulty of doing
so, the impacts of educational reform on states' fiscal policies, the
impact of the accountability movement on educational equalization efforts.
Available
through Rutgers University libraries.
Journal of Education Finance. University of Illinois Press.
[BB] Published Quarterly. Available through the ERIC database. Contains research and articles on issues of public school financing
and measures to promote equality.
Peabody Journal of Education. Routledge, in cooperation with the Peabody College
of Vanderbilt University.
[BB] Published Quarterly.
Current issue freely accessible through their Web site; archived articles
through the ERIC database. Contains articles on the broad topics of education and social and
organizational factors that impact educational institutions.
Journal & Newspaper Articles
Arensen, Karen W. "Focus on School Adequacy Is Now Key to Aid
Cases." New York Times 13 Jan. 2001.
[BB] Published the week the case was won, this
article reports on the successful lawsuit by the Campaign
for Fiscal Equity, which won additional state money for New York
City schools based not on the argument that school funding was inequitable but
that it was inadequate and violated the state's constitution guaranteeing a
"sound, basic education" and that since the school system consists
overwhelmingly of minority students, this was a violation of Title IV of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Costrell, Robert. "Check the Facts: Equity v. Equity." Education
Next. 5.3 (Summer 2005).
[BB] Compares the state-to-state equity comparison reports of two
different research reports: Education Week's "Quality Counts" and the Education
Trust's "The Funding Gap," finding that the same state can be cast as
highly equitable by one agency and highly inequitable by the other. Details how
states' efforts to adjust for inequalities make calculating equity difficult,
and why the argument has shifted from equity to adequacy. New Jersey's 1998 Abbott v. Burke
case and the state's ensuing funding proposals are mentioned.
Jacobson, Linda.
"States May See Fiscal Squeeze on Education." Education
Week. 27.17 (09 Jan. 2008): 1-16.
[BB] Describes
several states' difficulties this year in trying to balance their promises to
fund educational programs with decreased revenues due to the downturn in the
economy and the housing market as well as pressure from taxpayers to not
increase taxes. States focused on include California, New Jersey, and Florida.
Available
through EBSCO's Academic Search Premier database.
Campaign for
Fiscal Equity, Inc.
[BB] The official site of
the non-profit organization dedicated to school funding reform in New York
State. This is the entity that successfully won the lawsuit on behalf of the
New York City school system to bring a greater share of the State's education
aid to New York City and Long Island.
See especially the site's pages titled
"Legislation" to read about the New York State Legislature's recently
enacted Education Budget and Reform Act that resulted from the CFE's suit. The "Our Litigation" page contains a subtopic with a
"Year-by-Year Chronology" that details the entire history.
State of New Jersey Department
of Education. "Abbott v. Burke Decisions."
[BB] This Web
page collects links to and summarizes the New Jersey Supreme Court cases and
decisions in setting up Abbott districts and determining how they will be
financed. Summaries of decisions provide concise yet detailed accounts of the
actions the State had to take to follow through on the educational reform
required as a result of the litigation.
Rothstein,
Richard. Class and Schools: Using Social, Economic, and
Educational Reform to Close the Black-White Achievement Gap. New York: Teachers College Press, 2004.
[CS] This book goes in depth upon the issues of
class and racial divides on funding of educational programs for students and
the points touched on in Rothstein's article in Educational
Leadership (see below).
Available from the Economic Policy Institute.
Darling-Hammond, Linda and Diane Friedlaender. Creating Excellent and Equitable Schools. Educational
Leadership (May 2008) 65.8.
[CS, SD] This article
describes a study of success stories of students from low-income
areas who have excelled by attending alternatives schools to public
schools. The study looked at five of these alternative schools and
describes the policies in place or needed to help the school continue to
succeed.
Rothstein, Richard. Whose Problem Is Poverty? Educational
Leadership (April 2007) 65.7.
[CS, SD] This article confirms the inequalities of
funding and quality of performance in low socioeconomic and high
socioeconomic schools and offers suggestions on how to improve academics
for low-income students including after-school and medical care and student
integration with higher quality schools to end the continuous cycle.
